Flying... After a crash..

I had an inflight fire and burned the plane to the ground. Hopped in the schools 310 that picked me up after the accident. The school had me and my student fly the next day to a grass strip for a a fun lunch. We were extremely lucky, but brushed it off and continued on.
 
I've seen severe windshear/turbulence; I'm very weather averse now.

I also had a hydraulic line fail and spray fluid all over the running (and very hot) aux pump, immediately boiling it off. We were taxiing to takeoff when the whole plane filled with smoke. Scary to think that if that line failed about 2 minutes later, we'd be in a very, very low survivability scenario. Went flying in another bird two hours later.

It's a lot easier to get back in the saddle if its your job...because you have to. Clear your head, focus on your duties, push the fear down and go to work. I bet it's a whole lot harder if you're a casual weekender.
 
ackeight said:
I had an inflight fire and burned the plane to the ground. Hopped in the schools 310 that picked me up after the accident. The school had me and my student fly the next day to a grass strip for a a fun lunch. We were extremely lucky, but brushed it off and continued on.
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Were you able to put it down on a paved surface, intended for use by aircraft?
 
bucksmith said:
My biggest take-a-away was the impossibility of our primary training to fully prepare us for a SE A/C engine failure. There is a BIG difference between an engine at idle and a windmilling propeller..
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That's true of training almost any emergency, whether it be in a real plane or a sim. You can always turn the engine back on. My primary instructor was an old timer (who recently passed away). I learned more from him getting my private than all my other instructors combined. Early on he pulled my engine (with the mixture) and told me to find a place to put it down. There was nothing but rolling fields underneath me (we were in a 172) so I found one I liked and pointed the plane there, fully expecting the engine to come back alive at some point. It never did and we landed in a field. Turns out it was his friend's pasture and it was nicely mowed and the ground was solid. Of course, he knew all of this when he pulled the engine where he did. But despite actually flying that all the way to the ground, I KNEW that if we needed it the engine would come back. That makes it very different than an emergency.
 
Richkid said:
The fact that all mechanical devices can and will fail should not come as a surprise to any pilot. If you need time to recover from the shock that your aircraft failed, you may need a new hobby or career.
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I learned more from flying with the OP than anyone before or after. I feel like he's more than capable of handling the "failure" of his airplane..with that said, I would imagine an event like that would shake anyone's confidence to some degree.
I am contemplating getting out of HEMS because they seem to lawn dart on a daily basis, and one of the biggest reasons is, the older I get, the more I think about family, versus the fun of the job.
I think he's got a valid point in questioning going back up. All about the risk vs reward I guess...same as motorcycles, skydiving, etc...
With that said..when we going flying Tram haha!! ;)
 
Been there, done that. It was tough for me, I woke up weekly, sweating, those last moments would haunt me. It took years but I continued to fly.
 
Drafty, with slightly impaired lift. Luggage may exit aircraft unexpectedly. Walk-around interesting.
Nakedviking.jpg
 
It wasn’t a crash, but it very nearly was: on my tenth flight lesson, my instructor and I experienced a loss of power on climbout mid-go-around. We were maybe 400 AGL and rapidly watching the last stretch of runway beneath give way to the ocean ahead, helplessly watching the RPM spasm arrhythmically and the altimeter slowly unwind. It was definitely a trippy experience to actually see my instructor, as the situation progressed, line the plane up parallel with the troughs of the ocean, then the compacted sand on the shoreline; luckily, after a hurried call to a very concerned Tower, he was able to nurse the dying little 152 to an intersecting runway (a 100 degree turn rather than the dreaded 180 degree turn).

I went back up the next day (in a different plane!) with no worries; I actually nabbed the first post-maintenance flight on the troubled 152, feeling some (probably misplaced) affection for the bird. I guess I’ve just always thought that there are plenty of things to be terrified of in this world, and flying is not one of them. Obviously, (1) having the instructor there and (2) having next to no time in any aircraft meant that I couldn’t appreciate how quickly things could have gone terribly wrong. It was definitely a great introduction to emergency procedures and a wake-up call as to the weight of the responsibility lying on the PIC’s shoulders!

(Also, woo! First post! Hi guys!)
 
BobDDuck said:
That's true of training almost any emergency, whether it be in a real plane or a sim. You can always turn the engine back on. My primary instructor was an old timer (who recently passed away). I learned more from him getting my private than all my other instructors combined. Early on he pulled my engine (with the mixture) and told me to find a place to put it down. There was nothing but rolling fields underneath me (we were in a 172) so I found one I liked and pointed the plane there, fully expecting the engine to come back alive at some point. It never did and we landed in a field. Turns out it was his friend's pasture and it was nicely mowed and the ground was solid. Of course, he knew all of this when he pulled the engine where he did. But despite actually flying that all the way to the ground, I KNEW that if we needed it the engine would come back. That makes it very different than an emergency.
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That experience IS slightly better, but as your post alludes to, nothing simulates the actual physiological reaction to imminent death. It's amazing really, and a new approach needs to be added to training to better train for the experience. (If possible)
If someone formerly trained in some kind of human behavioral science is on this forum, pm me, I'm dying to write a book...;)
 
Having "been there, done that."

I'll offer this to other posters, if your story starts with "I almost.." Your experience is very, very different than "I have."

I say that based on many first hand accounts of my own "almosts." This is not an attempt to discount any of the experiences we get in the cockpit, but only to note that they are different in levels of "brushability", IMO.

Fires, departing airframe parts, electrical failures, farting corpses, etc are all very real experience builders and not to be discounted. You're either growing or or dying, you're never still...

That said, in my experience, they are different than having bent metal on an airframe due to previous said experience builders.

It's very easy to brush off the event that almost killed you in terms of "wow, that goose we took in the windshield almost came through and plastered itself onto me and the fuse panel behind me."

Brushing off the "we just skid to a stop, slightly short of the trees we were trying to avoid..."

I dunno, it's very different in my experience. Maybe it takes a bigger, better brush to brush it off.
 
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Tram: Cant remember if I shared this with you but, flying back from the examiner last year in the “old rental” I smelled an overwhelming odor of fuel. I opened all the vents I could but it didn’t seem to help. I wanted to get down as soon as I could but as you know, there weren’t a lot of options. I wont lie… I started to panic. My hands were sweating and I could feel the vein in my neck beating. All I could do was ride it out. I made it back alright and took my checkride a week later in another plane without any hesitation to flying. But what ifs started running through my head. What if I had passed out on that flight…. What if the plane had exploded…. What if what if and they usually get more irrational from there on. Since that event, every now and then I have these what ifs. I put them outta my head and believe that my training will get me through it.

Funny story: Im under the hood with Tram, and all of a sudden I hear this sound. Im not sure what it is, but it doesn’t sound right. Frantically I ask, “Tram you hear that?!?!?” ‘Whats that?’ “I don’t know, but it sounds weird. There it is again!!!” Shoves his Styrofoam cup filled with ice in front of me and shakes it. ‘Calm down chuck.’

I know, I know, Im a nervous nancy.


If badtransam97's ride gets canceled today, we were thinking about punching some holes....... if ya wanna go!
 
Man, I'm splitting atoms until Friday or I'd love to go.

I also don't remember the icy foam cup, but I don't doubt one bit calling you Chuck.. ;)
 
Tram said:
Having "been there, done that."

I'll offer this to other posters, if your story starts with "I almost.." Your experience is very, very different than "I have."

I say that based on many first hand accounts of my own "almosts." This is not an attempt to discount any of the experiences we get in the cockpit, but only to note that they are different in levels of "brushability", IMO.

Fires, departing airframe parts, electrical failures, farting corpses, etc are all very real experience builders and not to be discounted. You're either growing or or dying, you're never still...

That said, in my experience, they are different than having bent metal on an airframe due to previous said experience builders.

It's very easy to brush off the event that almost killed you in terms of "wow, that goose we took in the windshield almost came through and plastered itself onto me and the fuse panel behind me."

Brushing off the "we just skid to a stop, slightly short of the trees we were trying to avoid..."

I dunno, it's very different in my experience. Maybe it takes a bigger, better brush to brush it off.
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I would agree with this, having had a few "almosts" and a full-fledged "metal-bending" accident caused by runaway trim. It is different, and definitely requires a bigger better brush... in my case it was quite difficult to brush it off and it took me months and quite a few incident/accident free flights. Not to minimize the "almosts", of course.
 
I mentioned parachutes because in my 1,100 hours of flying I have had only one IFE, and a few close calls.

However, skydiving I have seen a lot of carnage happen to me, and those around me.

Jump number 25, I had my first malfunction. My rip cord was fixed in place and would not move, so I had to deploy my reserve, it opened hard and it knocked me stupid.

In 2007 damn near everyone who was involved in my training at Skydive Snohomish died when Caravan N430A crashed.

I broke my coccyx on a hard landing.

Jump 79, a girl Jennifer on the same stick as me lost controll of her main parachute and impacted the ground, hard. I worked on her the best I could until Cal STAR helicopter MeDEvaced her for the parachute landing site. She succumbed to her wounds later that night. I was still an EMT at that time.

Jump 80, I had a deployment malfunction on a main parachute from a low jump. I utilized my reserve, I saddled out ( under my reserve and flying) at about 500 feet. That was the first reserve I had packed as a new rigger, my own.

Jump 105, I went to Colorado for a coach course. We were in a 206 over Boulder, the pilot turns back and yells get the bleepty, bleeepty out of the plane. She encountered icing, it was building up quick. So the whole stick exits and we find our selfs in freefall, who knows over Boulder. We deploy parachutes at about six thousand feet AGL and one of the local jumpers motions to follow him to a lake shore. A real bad wind picked up, and I had to take a down wind landing, my other choices were power lines, a fence or other parachutists. As I am running out my landing I trip and fall and landed on a cactus. In Colorado, there are these short little things with long needles. My shoulder didn't like that.

There other dents, dings and other crap along the way.

My friend Timy Dutton a pro skier died, because someone hit him in free fall, knocked him unconscious and he impacted the ground still in freefall.

I got carted off once in an ambulance to the hospital because of a hard landing. Fortunately nothing was broken, "they just wanted to make sure" yeah, and line their pockets in process. For a ride with an ice pack and consultation with a PA that said take Motrin and ice your shoulder was 5 grand.

I have 412 jumps, 14 saves as a rigger, skydiving has literally saved my life. After a really bad break up I made 29 jumps in three days. It as the only thing with enough positive energy to balance out a very bad equation. This and other reasons are why I still jump.
 
Tram said:
Having "been there, done that."

I'll offer this to other posters, if your story starts with "I almost.." Your experience is very, very different than "I have."

I say that based on many first hand accounts of my own "almosts." This is not an attempt to discount any of the experiences we get in the cockpit, but only to note that they are different in levels of "brushability", IMO.

Fires, departing airframe parts, electrical failures, farting corpses, etc are all very real experience builders and not to be discounted. You're either growing or or dying, you're never still...

That said, in my experience, they are different than having bent metal on an airframe due to previous said experience builders.

It's very easy to brush off the event that almost killed you in terms of "wow, that goose we took in the windshield almost came through and plastered itself onto me and the fuse panel behind me."

Brushing off the "we just skid to a stop, slightly short of the trees we were trying to avoid..."

I dunno, it's very different in my experience. Maybe it takes a bigger, better brush to brush it off.
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I can only imagine. A few of the almosts still put me in cold sweats.
 
Hawks said:
I mentioned parachutes because in my 1,100 hours of flying I have had only one IFE, and a few close calls.

However, skydiving I have seen a lot of carnage happen to me, and those around me.

Jump number 25, I had my first malfunction. My rip cord was fixed in place and would not move, so I had to deploy my reserve, it opened hard and it knocked me stupid.

In 2007 damn near everyone who was involved in my training at Skydive Snohomish died when Caravan N430A crashed.

I broke my coccyx on a hard landing.

Jump 79, a girl Jennifer on the same stick as me lost controll of her main parachute and impacted the ground, hard. I worked on her the best I could until Cal STAR helicopter MeDEvaced her for the parachute landing site. She succumbed to her wounds later that night. I was still an EMT at that time.

Jump 80, I had a deployment malfunction on a main parachute from a low jump. I utilized my reserve, I saddled out ( under my reserve and flying) at about 500 feet. That was the first reserve I had packed as a new rigger, my own.

Jump 105, I went to Colorado for a coach course. We were in a 206 over Boulder, the pilot turns back and yells get the bleepty, bleeepty out of the plane. She encountered icing, it was building up quick. So the whole stick exits and we find our selfs in freefall, who knows over Boulder. We deploy parachutes at about six thousand feet AGL and one of the local jumpers motions to follow him to a lake shore. A real bad wind picked up, and I had to take a down wind landing, my other choices were power lines, a fence or other parachutists. As I am running out my landing I trip and fall and landed on a cactus. In Colorado, there are these short little things with long needles. My shoulder didn't like that.

There other dents, dings and other crap along the way.

My friend Timy Dutton a pro skier died, because someone hit him in free fall, knocked him unconscious and he impacted the ground still in freefall.

I got carted off once in an ambulance to the hospital because of a hard landing. Fortunately nothing was broken, "they just wanted to make sure" yeah, and line their pockets in process. For a ride with an ice pack and consultation with a PA that said take Motrin and ice your shoulder was 5 grand.

I have 412 jumps, 14 saves as a rigger, skydiving has literally saved my life. After a really bad break up I made 29 jumps in three days. It as the only thing with enough positive energy to balance out a very bad equation. This and other reasons are why I still jump.
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Out of all the aircraft you jumped out of, how many were on fire? Because that is my criteria..and even then, I might just say "you guys go ahead, I'm gonna ride this one out..."
:eek:
God bless ya
 
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